As we all know, Abu Dhabi’s reputation as a bad circuit is near-legendary. But as I watching a video of a flying lap the other day, I couldn’t help but notice that there were a few corners, taken on their own, are actually quite nice. The obvious example is turns two, three and four over the rise. It was originally pitched as a “reverse Eau Rouge”, going over a hill instead of through a gully, and while it’s not nearly as challenging, I still find it mesmerising to watch the drivers get as close to the outer limits of the circuit as they dare. On more than one occasion, I’ve been convinced that a driver has gone too far and won’t be able to get back on the racing line, only to watch them do exactly that.

Intrigued by this concept, I scoured the internet (or at least YouTube and Wikipedia) looking for examples of good corners at bad circuits. And this is what I found – Ayrton Senna’s qualifying lap from the 1991 United States Grand Prix at Phoenix:

On paper, it doesn’t look like much; a typical street circuit made up of endless second-gear ninety-degree bends. But skip ahead to 0:49 in that video for two turns that look utterly fantastic – a flat-out right and a flat-out left that feed into the long back sraight. Moreover, the left-hander has a blind apex, and the run-off area goes to the right. For a moment there, it looks as if the circuit goes to the right rather than to the left, and with the walls so close by, it would be a hair-raising experience.

So, what other good corners can be found on otherwise-horrid circuits?

alot obvioulsy depends on what you consider to be good or bad circuits but I’ll name a rose between thornes corners from the last few years.
Shangai- Turn 13, yeah it makes overtaking difficult but it is fun to drive gunning it onto the straight
Bahrain- Turn 4, lots of different lines into the corner make some interesting overtaking moves
Catalunya- Turn 9
Valencia- Turns 18 to 24, incredibly fast sequence of corners
Abu Dhabu- Turns 3,4,5
Imola- Acquie Minerali
Magny Cours- Turns 7 & 8, amazingly fast chicane, cars looked awesome through here

Hockenheim. Can’t think of many redeeming features here. Maybe the Mobil 1 Kurve into the stadium.
Hungaroring – the fast uphill left-hander, turn 4
Singapore – a great spectacle but not a great circuit, apart from the last couple of corners where the cars get impossibly close to the outside wall, then sweep into the finish straight.

Turn 3 at Catalunya has always been nice, as well as the old second-to-last corner before they screwed it up.
The double-corner-hairpin-thingy at Bahrain which catches drivers out all the time is good fun on the games, especially on a low downforce setup!
Turn 7 at Shanghai is good too!
The flat-out right-handed kink at the toned-down Hockenheim is brilliant on ’06, take too much kurb, and immediately spin out.

Looking through, there’s not many modern-day tracks that are actually ‘bad’… I was majorly struggling to find a decent corner at Valencia though for some strange reason ;)

Turn 1/2 at Shanghai. I know some people (I’m looking at you, Coulthard) slate it and point to it’s alleged origins as a Chinese character/symbol, and it’s perhaps not the best first corner in a race; but it is a brilliant, immensely technical corner

I know some people (I’m looking at you, Coulthard) slate it and point to it’s alleged origins as a Chinese character/symbol, and it’s perhaps not the best first corner in a race; but it is a brilliant, immensely technical corner

Hermann Tilke denies that the circuit was deisnged to represent the ‘shang’ character, and that any resemblance is coincidental. Rather, he claims he was only given a limited amount of space to work with by the Chinese, and so plotted a course that would be as long as possible and still fit into the space provided. The first corner complex is apparently the only part of the circuit to have survived every draft of its design. I seem to recall seeing a proposal that had the cars going straight ahead at Turn 3 to what is now Turn 8, then following the current circuit to Turn 11, at which point it headed back towards Turn 5 and a hairpin that fed back to what is now Turn 13. Something like this, if I remember rightly.